Forum:Inaccuracy
I've been hearing more and more complaints about the inaccuracy and fabrication of articles and information on the Wiki (which apparently has led people to shy away from it). But to this date, I have yet to see one example save one fabricated article put up by a player whose name I forget which was dealt with and deleted as per guidelines. So, rather than sit there and complain that there are inaccurate articles, say something about it or do something about it. Hell, I'll even create a whole new section for people to post their concerns over potentially inaccurate material. Tell me, Hawke, or Xerxes about potentially inaccurate material. Or edit it yourself and fix it so it is accurate. Don't just complain and berate the Wiki without bringing some evidence to the table. There are some times I take creative license to flesh out the MUSH pre-history (where there is little to no information), back when the game was still in its infancy - for instance, much of the Battle of Coruscant and Second Battle of Coruscant are fleshed out based on what I know - that Tagger assembled the Emperor's PRide Fleet and attempted to reclaim Coruscant. That was one of the first things I read back in 2001 when I first joined the MUSH; there was a little Imperial academy built into OSG and it had documents you can read. It told Tagger's story, but it was very limited in detail. So I fleshed it out some a while back (before I was banned) and it was overly accepted by the community - no one had any problems with it. Another such example is the Kessel Redoubt, which took the various battles of Kessel and put it into some reasonable context. The Imperial FH liked the idea, although he had some issue with some of the details (which I fixed), and it was accepted. So there is a difference between taking some creative license to flesh out the pre-history and inaccurate articles. I haven't done any of that in a long time (since my ban pretty much prevents that). However, in retrospect, I probably shouldn't have done that without initially collaborating with the rest of the community to ensure it would be accepted. At the time I was Imperial AFH and I still had my reputation, so people were pretty willing to just forgo examining it too much and just accepting it as is (unless it was incredibly unbelievable and too ridiculous to). So, in essence, if you see something wrong, say something. Because I patrol the recent changes, I make sure facts check out, and if it doesn't I'll do something about it. But all I hear is that the Wiki is inaccurate, it's a joke, etc., but I don't see anyone substantiating those claims. So, please, if you have any care at all, do so. --Danik Kreldin 22:38, 7 November 2007 (UTC) *I want to create a new forum entitled "Disputes" or something similar for people to post their issues with inaccuracy. I just don't know how to do it. --Danik Kreldin 23:53, 7 November 2007 (UTC) **Forum:Debate channel created. I'm not sure if we want to use it for disputes. Wouldn't the talk pages of the disputed articles be a better place to discuss disputed content? -- Xerxes 00:39, 8 November 2007 (UTC) ***Added List of disputed articles as well. It's automatic, based on the template, and might be more appealing. -- Xerxes 00:56, 8 November 2007 (UTC) -- I realize that I haven't mentioned this before, but I posed a similar question on the admin bboard a while back, asking the staff how the referenceability and trust level of the wiki could be improved. One of the ideas was to provide not only a way to dispute content, but also a way to certify content as approved, the idea being that players would know to view all non-approved content with an appropriate level of skepticism. It was thought this might take the form of small icons in the upper-right corner, like Wookieepedia's era icons. I've added the javascript and started the template ( ), but still need to figure out what images to use. -- Xerxes 02:48, 8 November 2007 (UTC) * Sounds like a great idea to me. But I'm not sure that's it necessary for every article though. There are some things that don't need necessary approval - people's backgrounds and stuff. People create backgrounds on the MUSH all the time and it's taken at face value unless it stands in direct contradiction to established history/the movies/just plain un-Star Wars. I honestly think that the MUSH is small enough that most information can be verified pretty easily and most people seem to take good faith when creating articles and don't bullshit. That dispute list was pretty small and a lot of it wasn't actual information issues - NR bank, the civil war-related articles (issue over naming), my article over length. Cyril could have done the same thing on the MUSH with &background (same with Rixt), concussion grenade was deleted, and the rest is up for deletion pending vote. Like I said, most articles are easily verifiable. But, a long, long time ago I suggested having the MUSH admin use the RPA to set up accounts here to check articles and ensure nothing broke rules and whatnot. Nothing ever came of it, though. --Danik Kreldin 02:59, 8 November 2007 (UTC) ** There's a basic truth that must be factored into any successful plan: MUSH staff spend a lot of time on the MUSH. That's where their focus lies. This leaves little time and little inclination to patrol the wiki. You can't expect MUSH staff to keep pace with wiki contributors. Having an explicit way of certifying content means that players won't mistakenly assume that something has been approved just because it's not disputed. If something isn't disputed, that doesn't automatically mean that it's approved. Conversely, something that hasn't been flagged as approved isn't necessarily wrong. A lack of approval and dispute means just that -- no one has reviewed the article. It's all about clear communication. Example... If I visit a character page and it doesn't have an approval tag, I can usually assume that the character's player created the biography and trust that it is valid. If that background info makes some wild claim (I am the third Skywalker kid!) and there's no tag, I can't really be sure whether to trust it or not, but I know to use my own judgement. If I see a dispute tag, I know its probably wrong. If it has been approved, I know MUSH staff signed off on it. If I see that there's no approval and no dispute, I know to be skeptical. -- Xerxes 03:36, 8 November 2007 (UTC) ***What's the plan to get MUSH staff to certify articles if they don't spend much time here and such? --Danik Kreldin 03:47, 8 November 2007 (UTC) ****The point is there's no way to force MUSH staff to review wiki content. So, you can't rely on staff to slap a dispute on every piece of questionable content. An article without a dispute tag doesn't mean that there's no dispute, it could mean that no one has looked at it. Best thing to do is provide the common user with an accurate assessment of each article's status. Worst-case scenario, none of the MUSH staff review any articles and people at least know that the content hasn't been reviewed. The key to getting people to trust the SW1ki is letting them know how far they can trust the content. -- Xerxes 04:07, 8 November 2007 (UTC)